Universal Robots to Power Next-Gen Laser Welding, Finishing and Plasma Cutting at FABTECH 2025

NOVI, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 2, 2025--

Universal Robots (UR), the leader in collaborative robotics, is set to elevate fabrication automation at FABTECH 2025 in Chicago, IL, Sept. 8-11, with a range of new pioneering cobot solutions.

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"Cobot welding continues to evolve at a rapid speed,” said Jean-Pierre Hathout, President of Universal Robots. “Eight years ago, we introduced North America’s first cobot welder at FABTECH 2017, performing straight MIG-welds. Today, new robot control features combined with the innovation of our partner ecosystem continue to push the envelope, handling applications that few believed possible just a handful of years back. This event is the perfect platform to experience how UR robots are transforming the entire fabrication workflow."

FABTECH attendees first to discover new UR robot
The UR President previewed a brand-new robot, engineered specifically to meet the toughest challenges in welding with outstanding reach, stability, and precision.

“Designed to excel under pressure - whether on long seams, complex parts, or repetitive passes - this new model will showcase how UR robots are not just keeping pace with industry demands but setting the benchmark for what’s possible,” said Hathout, adding that the new robot will make its global debut in both UR’s own FABTECH booth #B13045, and in the booths of partners Hirebotics, THG Automation, and Vectis Automation.

The UR President also highlighted new plasma cutting and laser welding applications coming to FABTECH, showcasing the most recent rugged and complex fabrication tasks that Universal Robots now handle.

Automated plasma cutting delivers weld-ready parts
Automated plasma cutting is one of the fastest-growing applications for cobots, thanks to its substantial impact on welding efficiency. Traditional hand-cutting often results in inconsistencies, making welding more challenging, whereas robotic cutting delivers parts that are ready for seamless robotic welding.

This synergy is showcased in booth #B13051 by Hirebotics, whose Cobot Cutter provides fast, precise cuts on steel, stainless, and aluminum, eliminating manual rework. Hirebotics will also introduce multipass welding, through-the-arc seam tracking, and AI-powered weld setting recommendations.

Vectis Automation is advancing this field further in booth #B13031 with the Vectis Shape Tool, which allows complex shapes to be cut—aligned or projected onto curved surfaces—opening up new possibilities in fabrication. Their Clarity™ Data Insight Dashboard captures valuable production metrics for optimized program efficiency, while enhanced software delivers advanced weave patterns and AI-driven path optimization, helping users master even intricate wrap and transition jobs.

Both plasma cutting solutions are also highlighted in plasma cutting market leader Hypertherm’sbooth #A4513.

Cobot laser welding goes mainstream
Laser welding with cobots is now entering mainstream adoption, overcoming initial concerns about safety, complexity, and costs through advances in control software, turnkey safety engineering, and fiber laser affordability. At booth #B13053, THG Automation’s URW-2LF Collaborative Laser Welding System leverages a UR robot and an IPG fiber laser to offer cleaner, faster welds with minimal heat distortion—plus laser-based pre-cleaning and discoloration removal for superior aesthetics and workflow simplification.

Versatile grinding, finishing, and handling
At UR’s booth, finishing and grinding solutions also take center stage, as PushCorp pairs a UR30 robot with the STC2002 servo spindle and AFD120 active force device, enabling automated, uniform surface finishing that adapts to part irregularities. Ferrobotics will demonstrate its cobot active force control (ACK-F), designed for robots with payloads of 8 kg and above. The demonstration cell operates flexibly with UR robots, enabling users to easily attach and program up to 15 different finishing tools on site. By combining Ferrobotics’ real force control technology with the intuitive operation of Universal Robots, the solution provides the ideal entry point for first-time users while also supporting customers who want to scale their finishing operations.

Material handling is equally essential in fabrication, from machine tending to automated picking, stacking, and palletizing. The company’s fastest robot, the UR15, will be equipped with Schmalz’s new FMG matrix area gripper, an automated solution suitable for flat, suctionable workpieces and equipped with an air-saving function that can reduce compressed air use by up to 80%, ideal for sheet metal production.

Attendees will have opportunities for hands-on demos, networking, and expert insight into the future of fabrication. In addition, Will Healy III, Teradyne Robotics’ global industry leader for metal fabrication, will offer a series of impactful presentations as part of FABTECH’s conference schedule:

Monday, September 8

Wednesday, September 10

Download images: Here

About Universal Robots
Universal Robots is a global leader in collaborative robotics (cobots), used across a wide range of industries. Our mission is simple: Automation for anyone. Anywhere. With over 100,000 cobots sold worldwide, our user-friendly platform is supported by intuitive PolyScope software, award-winning training, comprehensive services, and the world’s largest cobot ecosystem, delivering innovation and choice to our customers. Universal Robots is part of Teradyne Robotics, a division of Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER), a leading supplier of automatic test equipment and advanced robotics technology, including Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) from sister company Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR). For more information, please visit www.universal-robots.com.

Plasma cutting, grinding, and laser welding are some of the new applications now powered by Universal Robots at FABTECH 2025 in Chicago, Sept. 8-11.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ten years ago, Kim Gordon — a revolutionary force in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, the ’80s New York no wave scene and the space between art and noise — debuted solo music. At the time, she was already decades into a celebrated, mixed-medium creative career.

The midtempo “Murdered Out” was her first single, where clangorous, overdubbed guitars met the unmistakable rasp of her deadpan intonations. It was a surprise from an experimentalist well-versed in the unexpected: The song took inspiration from Los Angeles car culture, and its main collaborator was the producer Justin Raisen, then best known for his pop work with Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX. Their partnership has continued in the decade since, and on March 13, Gordon will drop her third solo album, “Play Me,” announced Wednesday alongside the release of a hazy, transcendent single, “Not Today.”

“It was a happy accident,” she says of her continued work with Raisen. “In the beginning, I was somewhat skeptical of working with a producer and collaborator, really. But it’s turned out to be incredibly freeing.”

“Play Me” follows Gordon's critically lauded, beat-heavy 2024 album “The Collective,” a noisy body of work that featured oddball trap blasts. It earned her two Grammy nominations — a career first — for alternative music album and alternative music performance. Those were for the song “Bye Bye,” with its eerie, dissonant beat originally written for rapper Playboi Carti. For “Play Me,” Gordon reimagined the track for the closer, “Bye Bye 25!” She says it was the result of her thinking about the rap world, where revisiting and remixing is commonplace.

“I came up with the idea of using these words that Trump had sort of ‘banned’ in his mind,” she says of the new song's lyrics. (An example: “Injustice / Opportunity / Dietary guidelines / Housing for the future.” President Donald Trump’s administration associates the terms with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which it has vowed to root out across the government.) For Gordon, because it became “more conceptual … the remake doesn’t seem as anxiety-provoking as the original.”

There is a connective spirit between “The Collective” and “Play Me” — a shared confrontation, propulsive production and songs that possess a keen ability to process and reflect the world around Gordon. “It does feel kind of like an evolution,” she says of this album next to her last. “It’s sort of a more focused record, and immediate.” The songs are shorter and attentive.

Or, to put it more simply: “I like beats and that inspires me more than melodies,” she says. “Beats and space.”

That palette drives “Play Me,” a foundation in which staccato lyricism transforms and offers astute criticism. Consider the title track, which challenges passive listening and the devaluation of music in the age of streaming. She names Spotify playlist titles, imagined genres defined by mood rather than music. “Rich popular girl / Villain mode” she speak-sings, “Jazz and background / Chillin' after work.”

“It's just representative of, you know, this era we're in, this culture of convenience,” she says. “Music always represented a certain amount of freedom to me, and it feels like that’s kind of been blanketed over.”

Sonically, it is a message delivered atop a '70s groove, placing it in conversation with an era unshackled from these digital technologies.

The title, too, “is playing off the sort of passive nature of listening to music,” she says, “But also it could be seen as defiant. Like, I dare you to play me.”

There's also the blown-out “Subcon,” which examines the world's growing billionaire class and their fascination with space colonialization in a period of economic insecurity. In the song, Gordon's lyrical abstractions highlight the absurdity, taking aim at technocrats.

“I find reality inspirational, no matter how bad it is,” she says. Where some artists might veer away from the news, Gordon tackles truth. “I’m not sure what music is supposed to be. So, I’m just doing my version of it.”

In the end, she hopes listeners are “somewhat thrilled by” the album.

“'This is the music that I’ve wanted to hear,’ kind of feeling. Does that sound egotistical? I don’t know,” she laughs. If it is, it is earned.

1. “Play Me”

2. “Girl with a Look”

3. “No Hands”

4. “Black Out”

5. “Dirty Tech”

6. “Not Today”

7. “Busy Bee”

8. “Square Jaw”

9. “Subcon”

10. “Post Empire”

11. “Nail Bitter”

12. “Bye Bye 25!”

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in New York (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)